Students challenging themselves in honors classes reap half the boasting benefits of their Advanced Placement counterparts. High school students taking AP classes in North Carolina get two points added to their grade-point averages by default.

It is not unusual for grade-point averages to rise above 4.0 for AP students. Honors and AP courses allow prospective college students to show off their transcripts with weighted GPAs. AP courses boost grades two additional letter grades, while honors provide one. 

With the popularity of advanced, weighted courses, many college admissions look at both the weighted and unweighted GPAs of student applicants. 

Universities like N.C. State are interested in how challenging students’ course loads were in high school and how well students performed, according to Thomas Griffith, director of undergraduate admissions at NC State. 

High grades in multiple AP and Honors courses are generally a good indicator that a student will do well at a strong university.

“The theory is that part of being well-prepared for college is taking challenging classes in high school. By giving extra points for AP classes, it encourages students to take those courses,” Griffith said.

Whether or not each course provides a relatively difficult challenge, Griffith said weighted, advanced courses incentivize high school students to challenge themselves.

Chuck Small, school counselor at William G. Enloe High School in Raleigh, said he agrees.

“Upper-level courses benefit students by exposing them to more academically challenging work while they’re still in high school,” Small said, “In addition, successfully earning AP credit can help students reduce the amount of money they spend overall on college courses, or at least allow them to move to higher-level college courses more quickly.” 

Small said he thinks most schools check students’ unweighted GPAs in addition to the weighted average, which can change how schools view students’ academic records.

“It’s not as if students taking heavy-AP schedules can somehow ‘fool’ admissions officers with the extra credit points,” Small said.

Opponents argue the extra points put more emphasis on the grade system itself, rather than the actual learning process. According to Griffith and Small, rewarding higher GPAs is an important incentive, not because of its face value, but because of what it says about students.